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Our local newspaper's classified
advertisement section includes ads placed by people wanting to sell pets.
There is a special "cats" section and a special "dogs" section.
Following those is a "Other Pets" section where other types of animals
(including birds) are advertised for sale. Occasionally there are ads
from local breeders, but normally the birds advertised are pet birds being
sold by their (non-breeder) owners.
In the 12-month period
beginning March of 2005 and ending February 2006, I collected the ads in the
weekend paper and put them into a Microsoft Access database so that I could
generate analytical reports on them and see what trends would pop out of the
data.
I included both ads for pets and
from breeders in the data as long as specific species were identified in the
ad.
In reviewing these numbers, it will
be helpful to keep in mind the population Columbus, Ohio (the area served by
the newspaper). I checked the web for census figures and found that at
the time of my study,
Columbus was ranked the 15th largest US city, with a population of just
over 700,000.
|
Count Birds By Type |
|
Total Offered for Sale |
Type |
|
1 |
Caique |
|
1 |
Dove |
|
1 |
Eclectus |
|
1 |
Senegal |
|
1 |
Society |
|
1 |
Zebra |
|
2 |
Lorikeet |
|
2 |
Pionus |
|
3 |
Indian Ring Neck |
|
3 |
Quaker |
|
4 |
Love Bird |
|
8 |
Amazon |
|
8 |
Conure |
|
10 |
African Grey |
|
12 |
Cockatiel |
|
12 |
Macaw |
|
13 |
Cockatoo |
|
The table shown here gives the total
number of birds offered for sale during the period.
One surprising thing is the absence of canaries
from the data. Zebra finches and society finches were advertised
(by a breeder who had several birds mentioned in one ad), but canaries
never appeared for sale in the paper. |
|
How Old
Were the Advertised Birds? |
|
Average Age of Birds Sold |
|
Type |
Number of birds with ages given |
Average age (years) |
Youngest Age Given |
Oldest Age Given |
|
Indian Ring Neck |
2 |
.75 |
.5 |
1.0 |
|
Lorikeet |
2 |
1.00 |
1.0 |
1.0 |
|
Love Bird |
1 |
1.00 |
1.0 |
1.0 |
|
Cockatiel |
4 |
2.00 |
2.0 |
2.0 |
|
Conure |
2 |
2.05 |
.1 |
4.0 |
|
Macaw |
9 |
3.18 |
.6 |
5.0 |
|
African Grey |
6 |
3.53 |
.6 |
8.0 |
|
Cockatoo |
7 |
4.86 |
1.0 |
8.0 |
|
Amazon |
4 |
5.50 |
5.0 |
7.0 |
|
Not all the advertisements specified
the age of the birds being sold, but some did. I extracted the ads
with ages included and calculated the average age.
Note the ages on the larger birds (the 4 highlighted
at the bottom here). Macaws, african greys, cockatoos, and amazons
account for 43 of the 83 birds advertised during the study period.
Of that 43, only 26 had ages specified, but what comes to mind looking
at the average here is the age of sexual maturity - when a parrot's
behavior is apt to change. |
|
Birds with
cages (probably not breeder sold) |
|
How Many Birds Were Sold With Their Cages? |
|
Type |
Count |
|
Indian Ring Neck |
1 |
|
Love Bird |
1 |
|
Quaker |
1 |
|
Lorikeet |
2 |
|
Pionus |
2 |
|
Conure |
5 |
|
Cockatiel |
6 |
|
Amazon |
8 |
|
African Grey |
10 |
|
Macaw |
10 |
|
Cockatoo |
12 |
|
It's unlikely that a breeder would
advertise birds with cages, so I did a cross check to see how many of
the advertisements included the cage. As you can see, with the
larger birds, the cage is almost always mentioned. I take this as
an indicator that the bird in question is someone's pet, not a baby
being offered by a breeder. |
|
Do they
talk? Are they well socialized? |
|
Birds That Talk |
|
Type |
Count |
|
Conure |
1 |
|
Quaker |
1 |
|
Cockatoo |
2 |
|
Amazon |
4 |
|
African Grey |
5 |
|
Macaw |
7 |
|
Some ads specifically mentioned that
the birds talk. |
|
Friendly Birds |
|
Type |
Count |
|
African Grey |
1 |
|
Caique |
1 |
|
Cockatiel |
1 |
|
Conure |
1 |
|
Macaw |
1 |
|
Cockatoo |
5 |
|
Some ads mentioned "friendly" and
some "tame". Notice that cockatoos were identified as "friendly"
far more often than the others. This makes sense, since cockatoos
are very "flock oriented" - so much so that they can become a problem
because they demand so much attention. |
|
Tame Birds |
|
Type |
Count |
|
Amazon |
1 |
|
Caique |
1 |
|
Quaker |
1 |
|
Cockatiel |
2 |
|
Lorikeet |
2 |
|
Macaw |
2 |
|
Cockatoo |
3 |
|
Being "tame" and "friendly" could
mean the same thing to many people. Only 2 cockatoos, one
cockatiel, and one caique were named as both "tame and friendly".
It's also possible that "tame" means that someone (maybe only one person
in the family) can handle them, whereas "friendly" might mean the bird
can be handled by more than one person. With the larger birds commanding prices of $1,000 or
more, it's interesting to note that being tame or friendly were so seldom
mentioned. This suggests that those larger birds have not been
well socialized and may, in fact, be displaying behavior problems. |
The total number of individual birds
advertised for sale during the study period was 83. 43 of those were
"large parrots" (amazon, african grey, macaw, cockatoo).
I am surprised at the small number
of birds advertised, given the population size and the large number of birds
that I have seen for sale in local pet stores. Quite frankly, I
expected to see more birds listed in the paper.
The numbers indicate that large
parrots, especially around the age of sexual maturity, become a problem for
many people. This is something that the "parrot-owning" community has
known for quite a long time; that cuddly baby in the pet store too often
ends up in the home of someone who doesn't understand what they are getting
into.
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